E-Learning as Organizational Strategy

The global knowledge-driven economy is characterized by both structural and personnel changes that are driving new models of teaching and learning. Today’s workforce has to learn and process more information in a shorter amount of time. New products and services are emerging with accelerating speed. As production cycles and life spans of products continue to shorten, skills quickly become obsolete, leading to the need for almost constant re-training. Managers feel the urgency to have new knowledge delivered to workers rapidly and efficiently so that skill levels can be maintained. Just-in-time training is becoming a critical element of organizational success. Learning is becoming a continual process rather than a distinct event (Urden & Weggen, 2000). The rapid deployment of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education is facilitating broad-based responses to the need for new knowledge to support learning. Teaching and learning for education and training are taking place outside traditional institutional and workplace venues. Universities and for-profit companies are both responding to the need for technological approaches to teaching and learning, sometimes as partners and sometimes as competitors (Barron, 2002; Brint, Paxton-Jorgenson, & Vega, 2003; Harley, 2004). They are both included in models of transnational education, borderless education, distributed learning, online learning, Web-based learning, distance learning, and global e-learning (Rocket, 2002; van der Wende, 2002).